Actually, a long time ago I used to go to pole dance classes for 6 or 7 years (LOL). I joined the classes for the exercise, rather than the sexy dancing. Exercising with a pole works out your core and the muscles in your entire body, so I had good muscle tone in my arms and abdomen while I was going to those classes, but I didn’t have good flexibility and my palms would sweat, so I would end up slipping on the pole, I didn’t make much progress, and I wound up stopping classes. The friend I started classes with is still going and is doing well at the professional level. After I gave up pole exercises, I decided I’d like to do some sort of exercise because I was feeling my body gradually losing tone with age, so I started going to Fly Gym. With Fly Gym, there’s no worry about my hands slipping on a pole. It really was the perfect exercise for me and my stiffening body because it gives my muscles and core a workout while I stretch.
The Fly Gym classes are held in the pole dance studio I used to go to.
This studio also has stretch classes; aerial hoop classes where you do acrobatics with a suspended hoop like a hula hoop; and aerial silk classes where you perform with ribbons hanging from the ceiling.
Fly Gym classes are incredibly popular, but the studio I go to only has 6 hammocks, plus the class is just once a week, so there is a lot of competition for places each time, and if you’re a little slow in booking, you always end up having to wait for a cancellation. Everyone is in the same class, whether you are a regular member or someone just starting out, but the instructor always works out a program that everyone from beginners to advanced members can manage.
The fabric slings make you swing as you dangle in the air, so once, early on, I felt ill, as though I was seasick. But I soon got used to it and now I never feel bad. Apparently, the swinging is different for different people, it makes some people feel bad, but not others.
While I’m hanging upside down, I sometimes get the scary thought “What if the fabric sling breaks, or the metal fixing comes off?” But the fabric slings for aerial yoga are special fabric made to hold a weight of about 900 kilograms, so it’s fine. When I go upside down in midair, I pull hard on the fabric handles with both arms and lift up my knees and bottom to turn upside down. It’s just like turning upside down with gymnastic rings in artistic gymnastics.
When you do the splits, you use the force of gravity pulling on the fabric slings, which can hurt because it pulls quite hard, but it gives you a good stretch, so it feels as though I am stretching a bit more than I usually do. This is how Fly Gym improves blood flow throughout your whole body, by turning upside down and your body being pulled by the force of gravity.
At the end of the class, you also get to spread the fabric sling out wide and get into it like a hammock, then gently swing back and forth, which is relaxing because you feel just like a baby in its mother’s belly.
Although the classes are 45 minutes, you do quite a lot of work, so you’d be completely exhausted if they were any longer, which means they’re just the right length.
Stopping pole classes meant that I had fewer opportunities to see the studio owner and the other class-goers, so now I get to enjoy seeing everyone again. The only Japanese people are me and my friend, but everyone is very friendly. Before the classes start and after they’ve finished, people greet each other, catch up with each other, and hug. For someone like me who works from home, these interactions with other people are especially important, so I think I will continue going to classes.
The studio is also for pole dancing, so there are poles here and there.
This is me upside down. My legs are working like crazy (LOL).
